Disabled people are often forced to be strong. Living with a disability often means every day is a challenge. There is no reason why disabled people should have to fight so hard to live.
Strength is often held up as a virtue, a badge of honor. But for disabled people, it is not a choice. It is a demand. We are expected to be strong to access basic needs, deal with inaccessibility, and survive in environments not built for us. That kind of strength is not empowering. It is exhausting.
The world loves stories of disabled people who overcome. It is a narrative that makes others feel good while ignoring the structural barriers that made overcoming necessary in the first place. When someone praises a disabled person for being strong, they are often overlooking the fact that strength was forced upon them by neglect, exclusion, and bureaucracy.
There is nothing noble about having to fight for a ramp, an interpreter, or a diagnosis to be taken seriously. There is nothing heroic about masking pain or pretending to be fine because accommodations are seen as burdens. These are not acts of strength. They are acts of survival in a system that demands proof of worthiness at every turn.
As someone living with cerebral palsy, I am exhausted by the constant fight for basic needs. Managing prescriptions, appointments, and medical equipment requires endless coordination with doctors and therapists, followed by long waits for insurance approval. It is frustrating that strangers decide what I need to live well. Imagine having to justify your need for a walker and power wheelchair just to avoid being stuck in bed.
Feel-good stories about disabled people doing everyday things such as going to prom, getting married, or landing a job go viral every year. These stories are framed as heartwarming, but they often reveal how low the bar is set for disabled lives. If a non-disabled person does any of these things, it is considered normal. When a disabled person does, it is treated as extraordinary. Inclusion should be standard practice, not a surprising gesture worthy of headlines and social media shares. When we treat these milestones as remarkable, we imply that disabled people do not belong to the rhythm of everyday life.
A disabled person is not inspirational for going to prom, working, getting married, or having a family. These are ordinary milestones, not extraordinary achievements. Treating them as such reinforces the idea that disabled people are exceptions to normal life rather than part of it.
What disabled people want is not admiration. It is equity. We want systems that assume access, not ones that make us beg for it. We want policies that trust our lived experience, not ones that require endless documentation. We want to rest without guilt, participate without barriers, and exist without being cast as either tragic or inspirational.
Strength should be optional. It should be something we choose to express, not something we are forced to embody. Until then, praising disabled people for being strong is just another way of ignoring the systems that make strength necessary.
The goal is not to celebrate how strong we are. It is to build a world where we do not have to be.